Strong Hold

by Sarah Castille

  A grin splits my face, spreading ear to ear. I am still riding the high of the fight, and I feel ready to take on the world. I want to do something I’ve never done before. Something crazy and wild like Zack and I used to do. Something I haven’t done since we were together.

  “I want to celebrate.” I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him close. “With you.”

  His eyes spark with interest. “What did you have in mind?”

  “There’s an abandoned boathouse down by the pier. The last time we came here to watch the Predator fight, someone broke the lock and we went inside and had a party. Maybe we could…” I trail off when Zack raises an eyebrow.

  “I’m beginning to think Redemption is a bad influence—drinking, underground fighting, breaking and entering, gossip, hookups…”

  “You’re just jealous of our little family.”

  He laughs. “Maybe I am.”

  We make our way to the boathouse undetected, and I tug on the broken lock.“ Are you sure you want to do this? If we’re caught…”

  “I don’t have much to lose as a recruiter, and I can’t really do much more wrong than I’ve already done.” He reaches over me and pushes the door all the way open.

  There it is. He just can’t let it go. Every time I think he’s gotten over it, he says something that makes me worry he is never going to forgive himself for what happened with Okami.

  “You fought in the ring today and everything turned out okay.” I clasp his hand and lead him into the dim, dusty boathouse. “Did you ever imagine that scenario the day you walked into Redemption?”

  “Fighting in an underground ring with you beside me?” He shakes his head. “No. Not in my wildest dreams.”

  “Same for me.” I put my arms around his neck and pull him close. “If someone had told me the day you walked into Redemption that my career wasn’t over yet, and one month later, I’d be fighting in the underground with you as my coach, I wouldn’t have believed them. I almost didn’t recognize myself tonight.”

  “I did.” Zack brushes his lips over my forehead. “I saw you in that ring, and I thought, ‘there’s my Shay.’”

  “Zack…” I’m not his anymore, and I’m certainly not the girl he remembers.

  “You know what else I thought?” He feathers kisses along my jaw.

  “What did you think?” I whisper.

  “I missed her.”

  17

  Shayla

  “Stay there. I’m going to check things out.” As if he regrets sharing his thoughts, Zack turns abruptly and slides the rusty bolt across the door. Then he walks the perimeter of the boathouse, as if staking his territory.

  Light filters through torn curtains, casting long shadows on the dusty, plank floor. I recognize the sharp smell of turpentine from the summer Zack took a job with a painting company and the acrid scent of gasoline.

  When he’s done his walk-around, he leans against a rough wooden pillar, arms folded, spearing me in place with the intensity of his gaze. Behind him, I can see the bay through the boathouse windows and closer, two tarp-covered boats, a long wooden workbench, and an odd collection of tools.

  “Everything check out?” I take a step toward him.

  He holds up a warning hand. “Stay.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to look at you.”

  With a laugh, I hold out my arms. “Here I am. I look pretty much the same as when you last saw me two minutes ago.”

  “Take off your clothes.”

  Ah. That kind of looking. The kind of looking where scars can’t be hidden in the darkness of a bedroom or beneath the shelter of one’s clothes. “When I said celebrate, I was thinking of a bottle of champagne.”

  “When I said take off your clothes,” he says, his voice husky and low, “I was thinking of now.”

  A thrill of fear shoots through my body. Unable to resist the challenge, I take a few steps toward the sheet-covered couch. “Oops. I seem to be walking.”

  He reacts so quickly, I barely have time to process what is happening. One minute, I’m a few steps from the door, and the next, I’m pressed tight against his chest, his arm around my waist like a steel band.

  “You sure you want to play this game?” He spins me and reaches around to unzip my jacket. I shiver as the cool air brushes over my skin. All I have underneath is the sports bra I wore to fight and far too many scars.

  “I don’t know. This bra is almost impossible to get off.”

  “You want it off, it’s coming off.” He slides his hands under the elastic and over my breasts, pushing my bra up as he goes.

  “You didn’t wait for me to say yes,” I whisper.

  Zack works the bra over my arms. “You told me last time I was good to go until you said no, and I’ve never had a problem getting you out of your clothes.” He pulls the tight material over my head and drops it on the floor beside my jacket.

  “You make me sound like I was stripping down for you every chance I got.”

  He cups my breasts, squeezing gently. “It was an effort to hold you back.”

  “What?” I look over my shoulder and glare. “So now you think I’m doing this because I lose control when it comes to you?”

  He gives an arrogant shrug. “It happens.”

  “Women tear off their clothes in your presence and—”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t need to know that.” Just as I didn’t need to know that he dated other girls before I became legal. Although we had a tacit understanding not to discuss that part of his life, it didn’t stop me from getting insanely jealous when I heard the rumors. As far as I was concerned, he was mine. He had been mine since I was eight years old, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him with someone else the way he couldn’t be with me. Just as I can’t stand it now, even though our future is uncertain.

  “I like that you didn’t need to know that.” He presses a kiss to my shoulder. “I like that you’re jealous.”

  “I’m not. A whole stadium of ring girls could tear off their clothes in front of you, and I wouldn’t care.” I tremble as his hands dive beneath my fight shorts, warm fingers stroking my skin. “And just to get your ego back in check, I don’t ever remember tearing my clothes off in the frenzy of lust you seem to think I was constantly in around you.”

  “What about my twenty-second birthday when I won that underground fight in Seattle?” He shoves my clothing over my hips—panties, fight shorts, and track pants—all in one go. “When we got back to the hotel, you told me you’d never seen anything as hot as watching me fight. You tore off your clothes and pushed me on the bed.” He groans and rubs his hand through his hair. “Hell. I think about that night all the time. I wanted you so bad. I thought I was gonna fucking die if I couldn’t have you.”

  I remember that night, how he wouldn’t let me touch him, even though he freely touched me. There wasn’t a part of my body he didn’t kiss that night. I had never felt as loved as I did in that hotel room.

  “And what about the night of your prom?” he says softly. “You were so desperate to show me your sexy lingerie, you broke into the school library and used a pair of scissors to cut off your dress when the zipper got stuck.”

  God, the prom. He remembers everything. I hadn’t even planned to go, because I had no date. When all my school friends socialized after school in sports or clubs and partied in the evenings and on weekends, I danced. And when prom dates were being set up, none of the guys thought to ask me, because they knew I was with Zack. But for some reason, I felt awkward asking him to the prom. He was older than everyone else, and high school had not been a good experience for him. I couldn’t imagine he would want to go back.

  Until he showed up at my house on prom night in a rented tux with a corsage in his hand.

  I don’t think he expected my memories of the prom to be all a
bout him. How I thought my heart would stop beating when I opened the door. How he kept his cool despite Matt putting him down. How his entire face lit up when I came down the stairs in a simple pink chiffon dress that I had worn for my cousin’s wedding. And how I spent the entire night in his arms, wishing I could be there forever. Or at least until I could get him alone and convince him to break his damn rule about waiting until I was eighteen to have sex with me.

  “Okay.” I shrug. “So maybe there were a few times.”

  “There were more.” He kneels behind me and helps me step out of my clothes. “I remember each and every time. Just like I’m gonna remember how you were all over me outside the machine shop, telling me you want to celebrate.”

  “Seriously?” I turn to face him. “I was all over you?”

  “Yeah.” He grins. “It was hot.”

  “Just for the record, I was not all over you, Zachary Grayson. And celebrate is not a dirty word.”

  He clasps my hand and presses it against his shaft, hard beneath his fly. “You wanted to put your hand here.”

  My lips quiver with a smile. “So now you’re a mind reader, are you?”

  Zack licks his lips. “You wanted to do something naughty.”

  I pull my hand away and reach for his belt. “Maybe I was thinking naughty as in eating a huge amount of carbs or processed sugar.” I undo his belt and tear open his fly. “Naughty doesn’t necessarily mean I want to sex it up somewhere people might find us.”

  His eyes gleam in the dim light. “So if I slid my hand between your legs, I wouldn’t find you wet?”

  “Hmm. I’m not sure. Let me see.” I trail my fingers ever so slowly down my body, between my breasts, over my stomach and my mound. The pulse in his neck throbs when I slide a finger between my labia, and a sheen of sweat glistens on his brow.

  “Check it out.” I hold up my finger for him to see.

  Zack draws my finger to his lips and then sucks it into his warm mouth. “You taste the same,” he murmurs after he releases me. “Sweet.”

  “Do you taste the same?”

  He releases a ragged breath and puts his hands on my shoulders. “Down on your knees, beautiful girl. I’ll let you find out.”

  I drop down in front of him, my knees hitting the rough wood floor with a soft thud. In no time at all, I have his jeans over his hips and my hand wrapped around his thick cock. He is hot and heavy in my hand. Delicious.

  “I never got to play the other night.”

  “You won’t be playing now.” He captures me with his gaze, so dark and intense, I shiver. “Open for me.” Zack cups my jaw, rubbing his thumb over my bottom lip as he opens my mouth, giving me yet another taste of his new, dominant self. Or maybe he was always that way and I never got a chance to find out.

  My body heats, liquid fire singeing my veins. I lean forward and lick the tip of his cock. Zack groans and sifts his hand through my hair. I swirl my tongue around the silky head, trying to remember what he liked and whether he tasted as salty and sweet as he does now. With my hand tight around the base, I draw my tongue along the underside of his shaft. His fingers tighten in my hair, and when I look up, he is watching, his breath ragged, his gaze fixed on me.

  I have tamed the beast.

  “Take me,” he commands. “All of me. I want to see those sweet lips around my cock.”

  My cheeks flush as I draw him deep into my mouth. In the years we were intimate, I gave Zack a lot of oral pleasure, although I don’t remember him being as big as he is now.

  Not that I would tell him…

  “Touch yourself,” he murmurs as I pull out on an upstroke. “Pinch your nipples.”

  “Don’t hold back your bossy self,” I grumble. “Tell me what you really want.”

  “I want you to stop talking and suck me, sweetheart. I want to feel your hot, sassy mouth wrapped around my cock, licking me until I can’t take anymore. And then I want to come inside your hot, wet pussy.” He tightens his grip on my hair and tugs me forward.

  Arousal throbs between my thighs. I never thought words could have such power.

  I draw in a deep breath, inhale the faint scent of soap mixed with the familiar scent of his body, and take him deeper, gliding my tongue along his shaft while I rub my taut nipple between my thumb and forefinger. I can feel every tug in my clit, every pinch as a pulse of heat in my core.

  “Fuck. You have a sweet mouth. Take me deeper.” He jerks forward, and the head of his cock hits the back of my throat. I gag and pull away. It’s been a long time since I let anyone go so deep—since him—and back then, he was different, slower and more gentle. Not the forceful presence he is now.

  “Relax.” Zack’s face becomes thoughtful, and he pushes in again, slowly this time.

  When he draws out, I bite down on his crown with the edge of my teeth like he showed me when we first started exploring each other, increasing the pressure until he grunts with pleasure. I relax my throat and then suck, my mouth moving up and down his shaft.

  His hand fists my hair, pulling me closer. “You’re going to kill me.”

  Wild with desire, I drop one hand between my legs to stroke my clit as I grasp the base of his cock with the other.

  “Christ. You’re so fucking sexy. I’m not going to last.” He tugs on my shoulders, and I release his cock with a soft pop that makes him hiss in a breath as I stand.

  “You did that on purpose to drive me crazy.”

  “Are you feeling crazy?” Released of all my inhibitions, I do the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull, knowing my bull would never use his horns.

  “Over to the bench.” He spins me around and lightly smacks my ass. “I want you the way I wanted to take you on Torment’s desk. I’m tired of jerking off in the shower to a fantasy that can come true.”

  “What exactly did you want to do with me on Torment’s desk?” I look over my shoulder, teasing. “Curious minds want to know.”

  A low, warning growl rumbles from his chest. He comes up behind me and curves his hand around my throat, just enough that I can feel the pressure but not enough to cut off my air. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want with you if I know it turns you on.”

  Nothing has ever aroused me like this. The warning press of his palm on my throat. His commanding presence. His hot, hard body against me. The words that speak to my deepest unspoken needs. A shudder of need ripples through my body, so fierce, I can’t hide it.

  “I can feel your pulse pound,” he murmurs in my ear. He roughly kicks my legs apart and slides a thick finger through my folds. “We never got a chance to explore what really gets you off, and I have a feeling we have more in common than we ever imagined.”

  “I don’t think—”

  Oh God. His finger curls to brush against my clit, sending a flush of arousal through my veins.

  “What turns you on? Is it this?” He tightens his hand on my throat. “Or is it this?” He pushes his finger inside me, and the sudden burn of pleasure makes me gasp.

  He presses his lips to my ear as he holds me immobile, stroking deeper as my insides clench around him. “I think you respond to giving up control.”

  “No.” I grit my teeth and will my body not to respond to the hand on my throat, the huge, heavy body behind me, the relentless thrust and stroke of his finger in my most intimate place.

  “Yes, sweetheart.”

  “I’m not interested in control freaks who want to boss me around.” Although Damian wasn’t controlling when we first got together, his growing insecurities in our last year together manifested in a need to know where I was and who I was with at all times. Sometimes, he showed up unannounced at bars or restaurants, and I began to suspect he was checking my phone. When I told Matt what was going on, he flew to New York to have a chat with Damian. Things were better for a few months after that, and then Damian was fired.
<
br />   “I can’t.” My voice catches, and I shudder. “I can’t go through that again.”

  His entire body goes rigid—and he spins me to face him.

  “What do you mean again?”

  “Nothing. It was a slip of the tongue.”

  His eyes narrow, and I can feel his anger surge to the surface in a protective wave. “You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

  “Maybe I want to do something other than talk about the past when I’m naked in a boathouse and my friends will be coming to look for me soon.” I force a laugh, but Zack isn’t fooled.

  He studies me for a long moment as if he can draw out my secrets with just a look. When no secrets are forthcoming, he brushes his thumb over my lower lip, and then he captures my mouth, igniting a fire inside me. He owns me with that kiss, claims me, sweeps everything from my mind except the feel of his hot hard body against me. His tongue pushes between my lips, ever so slowly, as if he has all the time in the world and our bodies aren’t burning for each other, as if his cock isn’t pressing insistently against my stomach, and my arousal is not trickling down the inside of my thigh. Our mouths fused together, as he walks me backward to the table on the other side of the boathouse.

  Zack tugs off his shirt and spreads it over the table. “Face down. Legs apart. Please.”

  Laughter bubbles in my chest, beating away the shadows of the past. “You don’t have to say please. I like bossy in the bedroom. Just not anywhere else.”

  “Good to know.” He gives a satisfied grunt. “Hold on.” He leans over me, spreads my hands wide, and curls my fingers around the rough edge of the table.

  With a firm thrust of his thigh, he widens my legs, and then his fingers find my labia to torture and tease.

  “Zack…”

  Warm hands spread out over my back, stroking gently before sliding down to cup my ass. I tremble in anticipation, but he won’t be rushed. He feathers kisses up my spine, over my shoulders, his breath hot on my nape. Beautiful sensations make my body tingle from my head to my toes.

  “Please…”